Talk-show host Michael Medved writes sharp and popular books advancing an optimistic view of the American prospect. Back in 2009 we discussed his then-just published work, “The 10 Big Lies About America.”

…that swept the country for 10 or so years was at its height when we did this program. Thousands of female “patients” were persuaded by stupid or incompetent “psychologists” that they had been sexually abused by their fathers or by others when in fact nothing of the sort had happened. The psychological injuries to those who had these false memories implanted and to those they accused still persist though the social panic has by now died out. In the middle of that period of panic we did a close analysis of what was happening. Our guests were three valuable debunkers, one a psychiatrist, another a psychologist and one a lawyer who helped the nation to put this harmful myth aside.

A striking side-note from a discussion in 1981 with Elie Wiesel, Nobel Laureate and historian of the Holocaust. He reveals that he himself was, inadvertently, the source of that designation – meaning, in the original Hebrew, “burnt offering” – for the term that has come to stand for the mass murder of European Jewry.

And here’s another charged conversation with the political scientist on our A Team, Charles Lipson of the University of Chicago. As we dart about in our usual free-associative style some of the matters we hit upon are:

• What do the Tea Party and the Occupy Wall Street movement have in common?
• Did Obama represent the last gasp of Democratic Party “progressivism?”
• Is there a  notable decline and disorder in the moral competence of  the white, working class family.?
• Does the presidency really matter or is it increasingly owned by “Wall Street” and the Media?
• Are Jeb Bush, Scott Walker or any other Republican possibilities actually “unowned?”
• What accomplishments adorn Hilary’s “great resume?”
• How about chucking it all for a parliamentary system?

This conversation came before the President’s lecture to the nation and the world about the equivalence of ISIS and the Crusades. That would have made a great extra feature for this edition but you might now want to conjecture about how that fits in with what Charles has to say, early on, about the decay and demise of the “progressivism” project.

Of the making of books there is no end. So says the Book of Ecclesiastes. But according to Adam Bellow, son of Saul, the strong liberal or “progressive” tilt of modern fiction is not counter-balanced by conservative or “traditionalist” fiction. As a publisher of conservative writers such as Charles Murray and Dinesh deSousa and – as influenced by his father and his father’s close associate, Alan Bloom – Bellow has undertaken to stimulate, encourage and “print” fiction that reflects conservative and traditionalist values.

In this podcast we discuss with him: how he transited from “Zabar’s liberal” to neoconservative; how his Liberty Island web site presents and stimulates short stories and essays in the conservative mode; and, most newsworthy, the new conservative genre novels he is about to launch.

Also emergent in this conversation is a good deal of engaging representation of the lives and relationship of Saul the father and Adam the son.

The trio of Hitler, Stalin and Mao were responsible for some 100 million political murders of civilians. Of these some 48 million could be traced to Mao Tse Tung and his two mad campaigns known as “The Great Leap Forward” and  “The Cultural Revolution.” The terrifying and inevitably riveting story was told by Oxford University historian Roderick Macfarquhar in his book “Mao’s Last Revolution.” He joined us in this exceptional program early in 2006.

Vergil, Plato, Augustine, Dante, Goethe, Austen, Melville – are theirs all “great books?” By common designation they are. What about  Dickens, James, Hemingway, Cocteau and Mickey Spillane? The later group may be more immediately enjoyable than the former.  But here are two professors of literature who joined us in 2005 with a great discussion of the great books concept and, at the same time, presented some exciting passages from some of the books they think to be truly great. And they can and do tell you why!!

By the year 2005 the Chicago Mafia had experienced – and performed – some 1,500 murders. A great investigation in that year disclosed much about who killed whom…and why and how.  Also illuminated in that investigation was how the Mafia was coordinated into the rule and function of a great American city. Here, in rich narrative detail, is the full story as reported by three of the city’s foremost crime experts.

So far, no far-flung empire has lasted more than 1,500 years (the Romans) unless you count the many dynasties of Egypt, the last of which was run by Alexandrian Greeks. The great questions addressed by “large-picture” historians are how empires rise and how and why they inevitably fall. Three such academic historians joined us in 2006 to discuss the Roman, Greek, Ottoman and Russian cases.

In one of his last appearances with us before his untimely demise, Carl Sagan pondered where, when and how mankind would go once it had shuffled off this earthly coil. Here is a brief and tantalizing excerpt.